1. Field
Embodiments relates to an organic light emitting display device and a method of driving the same. More particularly, embodiments relate to an organic light emitting display device having reduced power consumption, a method of driving the same, and a power saving unit thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, popularity of portable devices, e.g., a laptop computer, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a portable multimedia player (PMP), and the like, is rapidly increasing. In order to improve portability of portable devices, development of smaller, slimmer, and lighter portable device is ongoing.
Such development typically includes miniaturizing and integrating components of portable devices. In contrast to such miniaturization of most components of portable devices, a display of a portable device is required to have a sufficiently large screen for a user to easily watch.
A flat panel display is used as the display for portable devices. The flat panel display is thinner, occupies a less space, and has lower power consumption than a conventional CRT display. Thus, the flat panel display satisfies the requirements of the portable device.
Moreover, as portable devices are popularized, long time use of portable devices without external power becomes important to users. Several approaches for realizing long term use have been proposed. These include development of a high capacity battery and/or various methods of minimizing power consumption. Reduction of power consumption typically includes controlling power consumed by a component of the portable device having the largest power consumption, i.e., the flat panel display.
A liquid crystal display (LCD) is mainly used as the display of the portable device. In order to reduce power consumption of the LCD, a backlight of the LCD may be turned off in a power saving mode. However, since the LCD is a light receiving device that only displays a predetermined image when the backlight is on, the image cannot be substantially displayed when the backlight is turned off.
Further, since the LCD displays an image only due to light emission from the backlight, the power consumption of the backlight means that power consumption of the LCD is substantially the same regardless of the gray scale to be displayed. In other words, in order to display of a low gray scale, e.g., a black tone, image or a high gray scale, e.g., white tone, image, the LCD requires substantially the same amount of power. Therefore, in order to reduce the power consumption, the backlight must be turned off.
Furthermore, use of the backlight limits the potential of the LCD to provide a miniaturized, slimmed, and lighter weight portable device.